


drop dead gorgeous

by ToSeeStars



Category: Homestuck, Homestuck Intermission - Fandom
Genre: Guns, Innuendo, M/M, Multi, Polyamory, Tickling, god i hope i knew what i'm doing, slapstick violence, y'all sleeping on effigies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-25
Updated: 2019-06-25
Packaged: 2020-05-19 06:47:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19351645
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ToSeeStars/pseuds/ToSeeStars
Summary: Droog just wanted to get a new outfit design straightened out with his favorite tailor. Unfortunately, (or perhaps fortunately,) when the manor's this big and you're dating like a third of it, you tend to run into a couple different plans on the way.





	drop dead gorgeous

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Dragoneisha](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dragoneisha/gifts).



> this is my first time ever posting a fic on ao3, or doing a swap
> 
> hi dragon, i love you, i asked like everyone i could think of whether you'd like this or not and what to put in it and what was good and whether i'm going overboard or underboard, so i hope we were right
> 
> enjoy!

"You're kidding, right." Clover looks at you with that look that really, truly belongs more on some manner of imp than the angel he likes to pose as, purposefully dragging out how long you have to ponder your likelihood of demise, and you sigh. Of course, he likely wouldn't define himself as either- he likes to fancy himself a creature of much more mischievous mythos, if you recall correctly.

"I don't think you're in any particular position to object, Diamonds!" He chirps, _booping_ you squarely on your faceplate. There's a certain extent to which a man can tolerate that kind of tomfoolery, and Clover already crossed it a good bit ago, but if you knew how to circumvent the brat's luck you'd have done it years ago already. 

Your name is Diamonds Droog, and you are reasonably certain that nothing can ever be easy.

Your claws dig into the floor, and the wood splinters under your grip, but you don't manage to get any more headway on pulling yourself up. Maybe if you really scrambled....

"I'm not going to do your dirty work for you. Get it yourself," you grunt, kicking your legs out to try again to feel for anything you could use as a step. No luck- you don't even find a wall. 

"But then he'll be mad at _me_ , not you." He grins, then shakes his head, sitting down with one leg over the other. "Nah, I'm kiddin', but honestly, how's this a bad deal? Let me guess- your pride again? You're such an Icarus, you dummy."

Were it possible to frown at him in an audibly significant manner, you would have. Instead you simply scowl.

"Would you just help me up before someone comes along and decides my lower half is impossible to resist." He snickers, shakes his head, and presses a kiss to your forehead. He flips a card out of his sleeve- no, a coil of rope- like a magician might, fastening it around a nearby doorknob. He tosses-- teases you with tossing, you almost fucking fell, the accursed little jackass-- hands it to you. You haul yourself up and kick the trapdoor shut with your heel, shaking your head.

"Who should I be looking out for, if you'd be a doll." You ask of him- you doubt you'll get a straight answer, but it's worth a shot. Clover's cooperative, but often only when you treat him like he's your best friend. Or a particularly enthusiastic puppy. He is, as usual, idly clicking and tapping his heels on the tile as he smiles up at you.

"Mmmm, I dunnoooo, it's not my job to keep track of everyone in the manor at any point, is it?" Yeah, that's about expected. You sigh, and you crouch down a bit. Sometimes you can't believe what you'll willingly put up with from this guy. You scoop him up, press a kiss under his chin, and nuzzle his cheek with yours. As easy as one-two-three-four, he melts in response to the contact.

"Are you sure?"

"Mm....think I saw Quartz around somewhere. Cans won't do ya any trouble today, he's helping with construction. Crowie's supposed to be taking a break today, but lord knows he's bad at those. Miss Snowy's unpredictable as typical. The sharks are probably being gay together. Die's off doll-jumping, I think...."

"Not your job, huh?"

"Mm-hm. G’luck!"

He winks at you and spins on his heel, skipping off in what you presume is the exact opposite of the direction you need to go in. You take a breath, straighten your suit and tie, and walk. The manor, at any given time, is always one of two things- nothing in between. Either it’s so loud you’d think there’s a frat party going on, or it’s eerily silent and still sans the tick of the clocks. Now, once the click of Clover’s shoes fades behind you, it’s the latter. 

The manor is always equal parts familiar and unfamiliar to you, like the third season of a good show. You know the characters, you know the setting, but you can rarely predict what’s going to happen this time. Your plan, of course, is to cause just a _little_ havoc, find Stitch, and get back out, but things like this rarely go according to plan. It’s why you’re not surprised when you step halfway down a staircase and find yourself staring at the back of the second-biggest man in the manor. You quietly equip your pistol, starting to back up to where you’d come from, but his eyes land on you.

And he grins.

It’s a bit contagious; you can’t help but offer a small smirk in return.

“The fuck do you think you’re doing here,” he asks. You shrug a bit, tilt your head slightly, wave your free hand.

“Oh, just visiting. Getting some stitches done, maybe picking some clovers,” you reply. Clever? Maybe, maybe not so much. Fun to watch him get all hissy about? Absolutely. Quarters narrows his eyes, aiming a rifle held impressively steady at you.

“You’re gonna have to drag your miserable ass somewhere else for that, buddy. Private property. No prissy little bugmen allowed.”

“Mm-hm. Right,” you reply, “I don’t think that’s what you were telling Boxcars last week, but who am I to presume. Sure seemed like you took a real good look at--” A series of bullets fires past you into a wall, and you snrk quietly as you maneuver to some shelter. Oh, you touched a nerve. You raise an eyebrow and your smirk grows a bit. “Which one is that again? Betty? Princess? You name ‘em all, right?”

“Agatha,” Quarters answers, rolling his eyes.

“What an absolute _pleasure_ , Agatha,” you say. “Fourteen, you and me both know I’m not leaving without what I came for. Put the gun down and we can have a nice little visit, even. Nobody needs to end up with a new set of piercings.”

“Real generous of you,” he says, rolling his shoulders. “I just might take that offer if you weren’t _so damn irritating._ ” He punctuates that by firing again, and you roll as soon as there’s a pause, taking a shot low down. It misses, but it doesn’t cost you shelter.

“Shame, and here I was hoping we could have a good time!”

“I’d be havin’ a great time if you had a few more holes!” 

Your second shot rings true, ripping into his calf. He shouts in pain and anger, and you have to resist the urge to _whoop_ , straightening up. He could come after you, but there’s a kind of unofficial rule with your duels- first shot to land is the winner. You give him a salute and a sharp grin and he flips you off from the floor.

 

Where you find yourself a few minutes later is equally predictable, and no less of an interruption, though you’ll admit this one’s got a bit of a sweeter tune to him.

"Look," Crowbar speaks with the dragged-out drawl of a man who's explained the same simple instructions to too many idiots too many times and is gearing up to do it again. You hate, a little bit, how he thinks he can address you like that. You also can't deny it drawing you to him. "I'm sure any decent, respectable guy like ourselves can agree we'd all be better off with minimal hassle, right? So howsabout you turn around and neither of us has to deal with any big fuss. Capiche?"

You look at him and push your tongue through your fingers.

He flushes a bright red color- you never understood how that could show up so clearly behind all the green- and splutters, waving his arms and that juju of his with them in a shooing gesture. "Fuckin'- get outta here with all that! I swear. Floor's closed."

You flash a smirk at him, a lopsided hint of your fangs, and you swear you see him swallow in response. Still, he straightens himself up and narrows his eyes at you. Grows enough of a spine to approach. You step forward in return, leaving yourselves almost toe-to-toe.

"Dearest Seven, we both know--"

Your claim is cut off by a violent cough, and your claws come up to the juju shoved against your throat. Before you can get a grip on it, he thrusts it forward again, and you let out a strangled shout as you feel its hook dig into the back of your neck and pull you in. 

Your eyes forced to meet his, he asks you if you had to find a specialty milliner to get anything that could fit a head as huge as yours. You say no, but if he needs help findin' somebody for britches that won't fall off of 'im you might be able to hook him up. He snarls at you in that strange, high-pitched way of his kind,

and you kiss him.

He lets out a strangled noise and does this absurd squirming thing while you cup the back of his head to keep him in place, and honestly, if you didn't know better, you'd say that the man was acting like he don't even know what a kiss is meant to be like. 

You throw him to the floor, catching the crowbar and taking gravity's assistance to pull it from his hand. Hat lopsided and lip bleeding from where your fangs pierced, he blinks owlishly up at you for a second.You give a sarcastic salute, spin on your heel, and take your headstart before he can get up and after you. You grin to yourself as you hear his shout of protest and scramble to get up, but you're already turning a corner. Ducking through doors and hiding behind clocks, you manage to lose him in a matter of minutes. Though, you’re not exactly sure where you end up.

For however long you’ve been doing this, the manor never really gets much more navigable, even with your spatial sense. Hell, especially with it- you’ve remembered exact locations and paths and traversed them twice to find they lead to different rooms. You’ve made maps, overlaid them over each other, and found only a few things in common with each. It’s like the entire place is drowning in the strange magic the Felt call their own.

It wouldn’t be so bad, if it weren’t all so fucking  _ green _ . You’d really like to give the guy who designed this place a piece of your mind, someday. A good color scheme ain’t about a hundred shades of the same hue. But, speaking of good color sense...

You step into Stitch's workshop as if you  _ hadn't _ just loudly slammed and locked the door when you came in, adjusting your suit and tie and offering a charming smile when he spins around in his chair to give you a withering look. Though to be fair, withering is his neutral. You’ve worn that hat yourself.

"Diamonds," he croaks- though not literally, you should clarify, they do that sometimes and it's maybe one of the worst noises you've ever heard- as he stares you down and tents his fingers, "I'm assumin' you're the reason I've had to patch up Quarters' leg for the last twenty minutes."

"In self defense," you reply, the tiniest hint of amusement in it.

"That's what you say every time," he tells you. He's not wrong. "And what else labor are you gonna be puttin' me through today, ya lazy loon, dare I ask." 

Before you answer, you procure a bottle of his favorite bourbon as a peace offering, and he squints at you for a couple moments before he huffs and accepts it, popping the top off and taking a long swig.

"So," you say, "I've already gotten all the materials and the design laid out, you won't need to make any modifications--"

"That's code for 'what I'm askin' for is gonna be real complicated so I took out some steps," he gripes. You roll your eyes slightly.

"And it's for something in a few weeks, see, so I wanted to get ahead of tracks." You finish, flipping your design pad out of your deck and to the proper page. You hold it out to him, and he presses his fingers lightly to the paper and squints to get a better look.

He grumbles at you, makes a low little clicking noise in his throat, but he pushes the book away and makes a 'give me' sort of waving gesture. You neatly remove the design and its notes, shuffling half a cardsuit's worth of doubles out of your deck and onto his desk. He says to you, dropping the effort that English costs 'em, that he's gonna need your measurements.

You say he's already fuckin' got your measurements, and he's had your measurements every fuckin' time you've come to ask him for a favor. He makes a show of looking you up and down like you've shed or grown even an inch of shell. Says he's gonna need to update 'em.

Unless you don't need his services, he adds on, starting to turn back towards the effigies. You say if he needs an excuse to feel you up you could just pay him in-- there are very few men whose glare you'll respect, and you might not say Nine's one of 'em, but you do huff and shut your mouth on that humor of yours for a tic. He wheels his chair over to a cabinet and plucks a measuring tape out with a speed you've only recently started to accept he's got, pointing a thumb to the stool at the mirror's wall. Yeah, yeah, you know the drill.

You start to pull your things off, but before you’ve even set your hat down, you hear the doorknob jiggle. Clover waltzes (again, non-literally, given that's some kinda thing for these guys) on in, a keyring spinning on his fingers, because of  _ course _ he's got a key, why would you even be surprised.

"Are you takin' Dee's measurements again, Ninesies?" He asks as you start to undo your jacket buttons. 

"You ask a lotta questions with answers right in front of you, boy," Stitch answers.

"Quit callin' me that, 'm older than you are." 

"Act like it."

"I *do*, if you get your mind outta the city an' remember where we--"

You clear your throat pointedly, holding out the crowbar. Clover's eyes, you swear, *sparkle* and he skips over to snatch it from you.

"He's probably on his way," you warn. "You'll need to hide that."

Clover nods once, smiling, and promptly stows it in his hat. You've given up trying to figure out how that one, and any other strange thing of his for that matter, works.

It's just at that precise moment, of course, that while he's settling his hat back on his head and you're setting your jacket and vest aside, the doorknob jiggles again before Seven lets himself in, panting. He makes an almost-gesture. You could be wrong, but it looks like he tries to brandish his trademark weapon and has to belatedly, mid-second, realize he don't got it.

He sighs, straightens himself out, and  _ calmly _ (in that strained, definitely-pissed tone you're so familiar with both hearing and using) asks where the hell his crowbar went. Everyone in the room shrugs. He looks at Stitch with such a starkly betrayed expression that it would be funny if you particularly felt like entertaining a sense of humor today.

Crowbar shakes his head, muttering agitatedly to himself, and decides he'll wheel over Stitch's extra chair and plant himself down in it to interrogate you. You get your shirt off and set it with the rest, then step up onto the stool.

"Y'know," he sighs, like it's an effort. "if you were just comin' in to bug our tailor for somethin', you coulda just told us. There's no need for all the ruckus."

"Well, that wouldn't be much fun," you return.

Stitch approaches you with his tape measures, and begins his process of measuring you with far more touchiness than both of you know is actually necessary, but you're not complaining. Just shifting a bit when his fingers slide over your less armored skin. Years ago, you were disgusted by the texture of the green guys, but now that you've actually given yourself a chance, the softness is actually rather pleasant- and slightly different for each of them. Stitch feels much like a worn-down plushie, for one. Clover, you'd call him a velveteen rabbit, and Crowbar's the most like an actual billiards table out of all of 'em. (It's because he trims his fuzz down like the ridiculous equivalent of a human military boy, but lately you wanna tell 'im to let it grow out a little because you like it better that way. More to run your claws through.)

"It ain't about  _ fun, _ you colossal--"

"It's always about fun!" Clover chimes in, ever as helpful as he tends to be. Very little, that is. "When it comes to this guy, anyway. Guy's about half as edgy as he fronts and a fourth as serious." Crowbar looks like he's torn between being annoyed and smug.

"I resent that," you tell him, grimacing. "I'm quite certain I'm exactly what I appear to be when it concerns you three." Stitch snorts, and you shoot him a small glare. Traitor.

“Are you,” he says, and before he releases the measure around your waist, he squishes a little spot above your hip and you choke on your response. You smack his hand off and stare at him warily. 

“Don’t.” You glance at Clover, and you hate that you recognize the glint of mischief in his eyes. ”If you’re thinking what it looks like you are, no amount of luck will save you,” you tell him. He ignores you completely. Stitch snickers to himself and rolls up his measuring tape, backing up and watching the other two as Clover elbows a distracted Crowbar.

“‘Ey Jackpot, y’know, I think I might have an idea that juuuus’ might teach Dee why he shouldn’ go catchin’ all our attention at once.” He says, prompting a mildly curious look from Seven. “I mean, he’s preeeetty much askin’ for punishment, ain’t he?” 

“Well, yeah, but--” Crowbar starts, then he actually catches on when Clover makes these playful little claw hand gestures that set you on edge real quick. Crowbar’s expression goes from a befuddled brow-furrow to bemused brow-raising, and he glances at you. “I don’t know about that.”

“I’d put your head on a pike, Seven. Best not to.” You pull your shirt back over your head, but before you can finish pulling it down, a tiny projectile comes shooting over to knock you off the stool. It goes flying, and you hit the floor with a grunt, though you manage to push your attacker away before he can reach your weak points. You hold Clover up over you as he squirms and giggles, trying to reach you with his little hands. Is he deaf, you ask him. He says he can hear just fine, and what he wants t’ hear is you doin’ that really sweet laugh o’ yours you hardly never let anybody hear. You tell him to shut the fuck up.

Crowbar steps over; you let him take Clover off of your hands. What you aren’t expecting him to do is drop the guy right back on you, so you have to clamp your mouth shut and catch his hands as they go for your stomach. You glare at Crowbar- or, well, you try to, anyway; you’re still trying to get  _ not fucking smiling _ under control- and he has the audacity to kneel down and poke you under your arm. You make a clipped, high-pitched noise, shifting both of Clover’s wrists into one hand so you can smack Crowbar away. He catches your hand in his and grins a little.

“Alright, I’m feelin’ kind today, so I’m gonna give you one chance outta this.” He sets his free hand on your waist, looks at you. “Where’s my crowbar.”

You glance between Crowbar and Clover. Four’s giving you a little pleading look, but he’s gonna gang up on you the second you let him have his hands anyway. Seven you can count on to back off on a fair deal’s terms...but you’d be giving in. Your pride argues that that’s less humiliating than the alternative, but you’d have to consider Clover would definitely get back at you later. And his trust was hard enough to earn in the first place. Who knows what his luck would do for him, too…

“Are you  _ strategizing? _ ” Clover asks.

“Yeah, what of it,” you reply. “Don’t know where your namesake got off to, Seven. Might be it just sprouted legs aaAAND--” You squeak as he squeezes your side, pinning your hand against the rug. 

“Wrong answer,” he says, snaking his hand under your shirt to get fingers on your stomach. That’s not  _ fair, _ going straight for your weak spot first. You twist to try to defend yourself, shaking with the effort of not laughing. He makes a cooing, teasing noise at you and you break into giggles faster than you’d like to admit.

“ _ Crowbar!”  _ you yelp, and despite your best judgement, you let go of Clover’s wrists to cover your grinning. Much to your surprise, he doesn’t immediately gang up on you. Instead, he makes a shove at Seven and points his attack thataway, laughing enthusiastically. Crowbar’s shouting about traitorship and just barely keeping the little munchkin at bay. You push yourself up and brush yourself off, though you can’t quite shake the smile as hard as you try. Glancing at Stitch reveals much the same- for a second you’re two sentimental jerks just watching your boyfriends fuck around. It’s almost repulsive how much you love them.

“Well,” you say, buttoning up your vest and turning away as if you haven’t just been physically accosted with the concept of joy, “regardless, Nine, did you get what you needed.” Stitch clicks his tongue and crosses his arms, tilting his head off to the side for a moment. He glances behind you and, after another two seconds of deliberation, answers,

“No, but I will.”

You look behind you. Before you is, one, Crowbar with the most ‘whoops’ expression you’ve seen on his face so far, two, Clover dangling half upside down in his hands, three, a coin on the floor, and four, an apparently disoriented Quarters patched up rather well from your scuffle earlier. He looks at you. You look at him. He looks at you. You look at him.

"Hi Quartz!" Clover chirps.

"...Hey, mini." Quarters keeps staring. "What're we all doing here." 

At once, you each try to reply. Getting a fitting, you say. Watching a show, Stitch says. Nothing, Crowbar says. Having tickle fights, announces Clover. Quarters looks between all four of you, then settles back on you. "We've got a score to settle," he says.

Your deck is in your slacks, which you'd like a fool neglected to put back on first in favor of protecting your torso. You make a  _ hm _ noise in reply as you go to pull them on.

Crowbar sets Clover down, and he immediately attaches to Quarters' leg. Noooo, he whines. Quarters sighs. Why, he asks. Clover says he was busy bein' gay and he's not in the mood to spill guts all over the place and also he doesn't want neither of 'em full of more bullet holes, even if Stitch is right there,  _ Quartz.  _ Especially when Stitch is right here, Stitch grumbles, flipping your hat around idly in his hands. Gonna work him into an early grave, he says.

That just ain't fair, Quarters grouses. Clover asks if there's a way to make it up to him. Crowbar gets that kinda look on his face where he's had an idea, then doesn't say it. Quarters says just a  _ little _ blood. Clover says he can wait a little bit. You ask Crowbar what the face is for.

Crowbar says you don't want to know. Clover asks what, what is it? He says you don't want to know. Quarters tells him to spit it out already. Crowbar groans.You say you'll trust his judgement on it. Stitch says he might as well just get it over with. Crowbar makes a face. Kind of a pursed lips expression, except even more done with his life.

Everyone waits in silence for exactly seven seconds before he sighs.

"Fourteen's big enough to be a great restraint."

The entire room's expressions reach different levels of dawning realization at different times. You thank whatever's out there that your face can't be colored with your blood.

Clover says, well, gotta catch you first. Quarters stares for several seconds.

You dive out of the way when he lunges for you- he drops to all fours without missing a beat, which you'll admit is about as hot as it is alarming. Stitch grabs a rolling work table and pulls it and himself out of the way. The workshop's none too small, at least- you can keep enough distance between him and you for a hot minute. Clover whistles at the two of you and you're honestly not sure who he means to cheer on. You duck through the rack of effigies and force Quarters to slow down as to not injure his gangmates, taking shield behind his in particular. It’s a bet, and one you lose; a weaker man would have hesitated long enough to make his effigy an effective shield, but Quarters simply knocks the hat off of it and keeps after you, almost catching your sleeve..

You sprint for the door, slamming it in his face and for just a split second *delighting* in the grunt that comes from behind it as you bolt off. Quarters is stronger than you, but he doesn’t have nearly the speed or agility. You can hear the door slam against the wall behind you, and his footsteps thudding, but you turn a corner and practically fly down the stairs you come across. You hurry down a hall, slipping through a door and closing it just carefully enough to not make a sound. You hear Quarters stomping through and conclude you must be home free for a bit-- that is, until you feel fingers ghost over your stomach. You look around in confusion for a moment, then realization dawns on you. You reach up to pat the top of your head.

No hat.

Fuck.

Try as you might, clutching your arms around your sides does nothing to stop the feeling when the fingers return, and you lean against the wall and slide down, muffling your giggling into your hands and kicking as if it’ll make the sensation any more bearable. Fuck, he’s going to hear you. It’s bad enough to begin with, but your attacker slips up your sides to poke at your ribs and under your arms, and you make a high-pitched squeaking kind of noise you pray to the terrors wasn’t loud enough to be heard. It stops, for a second, and you try to breathe. Maybe they got bored? Can’t see your reaction from all the way in there, right.

Unfortunately, you have no such luck. Seconds later, you feel fingers dig into your stomach, and you lose it, laughing so loudly and openly that Quarters looks more entertained than angry at you when he shoves the door open. He hefts you up, and you’re helpless to do anything about it, just trying to hide your burning face in your knees. Not so tough anymore, are ya, he asks you. In a voice shaking with laughter you call him a bastard, and he snickers to himself as he hauls you back up to the workshop. It’s stopped by the time you get to the door.

Quarters thanks Stitch for the ‘assistance’, and Stitch winks at him. Well, it’s probably a wink- it’s a little hard to tell sometimes, on account of one of his eyes not being all that reliable. Quarters sets you down with both your wrists in his hand, held above your head. You yank at your hands, but no dice. Clover and Crowbar seem to have settled down into cuddling, and they just watch this like it’s the most normal thing in the world.

“Say uncle,” he says, wiggling his claws threateningly in front of your stomach. You pull away as far as you can, but stars, that’s a strong grip. There’s no strategizing out of this one. In fact, even before you can think to offer some kind of bargain, he’s already tickling you ruthlessly. You  _ squawk _ laughter and there are beads of water forming at the corners of your eyes when you wheeze,

“I give, I give!”

Quarters drops you, grinning smugly, and Clover hops up from Crowbar’s lap to cup your cheeks before you can hide your face. He presses kisses to your faceplate and wraps his arms around your neck, purring.

“Are you okay, sweetheart?” he asks you, and you reply by pressing a kiss to his lips, pulling him in to squeeze him tight. He purrs, and you catch your breath, then press more tiny pecks to his cheeks.He knows you- he knows how you reserve your excitement until you really, truly need to show it, he knows how you hate to use your words unless the stars and the planets are aligned, each of them- you can count on these guys to be able to hear you even if you aren’t speaking aloud. 

“Where’s mine?” Crowbar chimes in, and you wave him over so you can pull  _ him _ in, hooking one arm around his neck so you can give him a good, long kiss too. You’re going to get payback later, you mutter into it, and he runs his hands down your back and tells you it was worth it no matter what you’ve got up your sleeve for him. You lean against him and press another, looser kiss to the side of his neck, letting out a sigh.

Stitch chuffs and tells you all to get out, he’s got work to do. You roll your eyes and get up, shifting over to squeeze him around the shoulders and give him a pointed look as you snatch your hat off an effigy. He gives you a small amused grin and then turns to his work, waving you all off. 

“Whose room?” You ask the others, grabbing your jacket as you head for the door.

“Not staying for all this sap, see you jackasses later,” Quarters replies promptly, heading off. You flip him off as he leaves.

“Crowbar got dibs last time, c’mon, mine!” Clover volunteers, and he springs for the door. You and Crowbar follow, and you rub your face. Your shoulder bumps lightly against his, and he smiles at you like it’s some kind of secret- it almost is, in a way- between the two of you. 

You get into Clover’s room and he slips into his closet for a moment, coming out hatless and with pajamas on. Look, he says, he’s a pillow now. You shake your head a bit and take off your things, Crowbar joining you. The three of you settle down in Clover’s bed- the kind of thing that could fit at least five of you, let alone someone his size- and you relax, your boys in your arms. You still can’t believe you’ve ended up here, some days. With these people, with this kind of happiness. With all these flaws and quirks and perfections. 

....You’ll have to ask what Clover needed the crowbar for later, but that’s a story for another time.


End file.
